An idea for a town centre hub for groups, charities and organisations has been put forward by a Bridport town councillor.

Councillor Rose Allwork said that it would be good to have a shop on the high street where the numerous groups in the town could show what they do, host activities and show skills, giving an example of a similar thing happening in Barking and Dagenham.

She said: "The idea arose out of various conversations with various people around the idea that in Bridport there is a vast number of community groups and support groups and pretty much anything you want, but unless you know where to go and look for them, they might be quite hard to find.

"The core of the idea is anybody with an idea of something they want to do or something they want to share, a skill or resource, can come along and use that space to do so.

"They can centre their work around things that are of interest to pretty much anybody - play for young children and families, cooking and growing food wood be a big thing."

Cllr Allwork said that as Bridport Town Council was looking at various buildings in the town and there are potentially some empty shop fronts, it would be a good idea to look at now.

"We have this background of a great upsurge of community involvement through the response to Covid and all the volunteer in that," she added, "I though now might be a good time for us to start considering whether it's something that, as a council, we might look into setting up as a project.

"The idea for me would be somewhere on the high street so that it's completely accessible and open and you walk past it every time you go shopping.

"The idea would be to engage right across the whole community of Bridport so that everybody in town that wants to be involved in something, needs some support or needs some information has one place to go where they can find out what they need."

Cllr Allwork said although it is not in the town council's remit to run a big organisation, they could contact a core group who would be interested in taking part and provide a premise.

Cllr Ian Bark said the council could co-ordinate it and bring groups together to "get the ball rolling".

"Maybe we are the ones that organise the first conference of all these groups and see how they can then take it on and turn it into something more coherent and organised," he said.

Cllr Sarah Carney said it was a "brilliant idea".

She said: "The things that have happened in the community because of Covid have been fantastic and you're absolutely right, Bridport does wonderful things anyway but I really do think we need to grasp this community spirit while it's here and bring everyone together."

Town clerk Will Austin said: "I appreciate the desire of the town council to lead on this in some way, get the mayor involved - just to remind you that we've got a whole heap of priorities and you probably need to decide if this slots into that list.

"Just think about if it fits in with your other plans and how we resource all that."

Cllr Allwork will work out plans and bring them back to the next committee meeting of the environment and social wellbeing committee.

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